Not long ago, I clicked on an article with a very interesting title. I wasn’t quite sure was I was about to experience, but I knew I was very curious.

The title read “What is a sexy ‘body’? This remarkable model’s photos are redefining that answer”.

I was intrigued and went on to watch this amazing 10-minute TEDTalk by Aimee Mullins – see above – which was posted on the page. And boy, am I glad I did. (It has almost 3 million views to date.)

Aimee is an American athlete, actress and fashion model who first became famous for her athletic accomplishments. She was born with a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both her lower legs and has become one of the most prominent thinkers on the topic of prosthetic innovation.

The video really got me thinking about beauty from an angle I never thought of before – and Aimee highlights this in her talk.

She says:

“Kids are naturally curious, about what they don’t know, or don’t understand, or is foreign to them. They only learned to be frightened of those differences when an adult influences them to behave that way.”

It really got me thinking about what we deem as beautiful… and how we view the disabled.

For those of us who do not have any physical disabilities or deformities, we sympathise, but I know deep down most of us would not want to trade positions with those such as amputees, the paralysed, and so on.

But why do we think or feel this way? Who planted the seed that this was unfortunate or unattractive? Why do we feel sorry and sympathise for those in that situation?

It’s time to change that old belief and thought and look at things from a whole new refreshing angle.

What if we got together, and on a creative scale, flipped that view and used our skills and talents to come up with something new and different – and beautiful in it’s own way – to accessorize (for lack of a better word) these changes to the human form one might need to embrace? What if we changed the context of the message we were passing down to our children of what it means to be and look disabled?

(You’ll know what I mean when you get to the part in the video where Aimee shows you her gorgeous 12 pairs of legs.)

Watch the video above and see if you get the point – at the end of the day, we’re all one and the same.

Creatures of humanity.

We all cry, we all bleed, we all laugh and we all love.

We all want to be accepted and we don’t want anyone to view us as “different”, and feel sorry for us for that.

So let’s put aside our differences, and come together to add to diversity of life, no matter what shape or form (or colour) we come in.

If you watch the video to the end, you will see that we can really make anything beautiful, even if society has in the past, perceived it as “unattractive”. Anything can be beautiful. And it’s time we start putting our imagination to the test.

Who says we have to look the way we do? Let’s break that stigma and allow us to look anyway we want (or need) to be.

What are your thoughts on how we as a society perceive beauty? Post your comments below!

Receive Updates

No spam guarantee.

I agree to have my personal information transfered to MailChimp ( more information )